After Augustus
by the-fan-girl-1234
Summary: Ever since Augustus' death, Hazels been slowly falling apart. After the loss of another close friend will she be able to keep it together, or will it all be too much? With her lungs getting worse and worse, how much longer will she be able to hold on to this life? She might just have to say goodbye, forever. Rated T for literally no reason but paranoia, so its probably more like K
1. Chapter 1

**A/N- This is going to be relatively short, but I hope you will still like it as much as I do! Hazel is obviously very OOC, because I would never be able to recreate the genius personality John Green gave her, but also because she is distraught and in tremendous pain for the entire thing. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own The Fault in Our Stars, John Green does, and he did the best job ever on it! **

Hazel's pov:

I slip into a black dress. For me, black clothes can only mean one thing, death. Again. After Gus, I've never really gone back to being me. How can I, when half of me has been ripped off without my permission? But sobbing and feeling sorry for myself won't bring either of them back, I remind myself getting into the car. It's not uncommon for me to know dead people, but it still hurts when you really know them. Especially when you know a funny, silly remark they'd have said when you look at something, almost start to smile. But then, as it always does, the realization floods in that they will never be here again to tell it, and instead of joy all you can feel is pain.

No clue what I'm talking about? Consider yourself lucky.

As I approach the open casket, memories of doing the same thing for Gus suffocate me, and I think my already crappy lungs might finally give out. But they don't, they never do, and I have to just keep struggling on. Seeing his face, so serene, kills me. His eyes shut, not that it makes any difference. Post- Gus, Isaac was the one who saved me from myself, talking me off the ledge each time I wanted to give up and join him in heaven. I wonder who will save me from me now. During his ceremony, I am again reminded of how wrong they story always is. Isaac wasn't a new person after he went blind, and he wasn't a charity case, as these people make him out to be! He tried, and everyone like him and me and Gus and everyone else know that, but these people will never understand. Funerals are for the living.

I go home to watch more ANTM, slipping into the depression I was in before I ever met Gus. Only this time, it was so much worse. The aching in my chest never goes away, no one can keep my mind off it now, either, and it only grows. I let it, even though Gus would've never let me. I guess I will have to start saving myself, but not today. Tomorrow I have more scans, and I'm worried they will indicate that I'm soon to meet the fate my friends have.


	2. Chapter 2 catching my breath

My worst fears are confirmed, when we find out the Pifilanxor has stopped working. I have weeks at most.

* * *

It'll be any day now, I feel worse than I did when my mom was sure I was going to die, and no miracles seem to be coming. When I see a hand reach to me, I smell the sent I haven't since I was in his basement. When I hear Gus's amazing voice call to me, telling me that its time, I need to come join him and leave all my pain and suffering behind, I want to so badly. I start to reach for him. But I hear the door open, my mom rushing in, seeing me and fearing the worst. She grabs me, pulling me into her sobbing arms, crying, begging for me to come back to her, not to leave her. After all I've put her through these past few years, it's the least I can do for her. I let go of Gus and slip back onto the pain in my mother's arms. Somewhere inside me I know I've made the right decision. Somewhere in my brain knows that Gus will always be there waiting for me, but once I leave mom I can never go back. Somewhere I know these things, but right know all I know is pain.


	3. Chapter 3 holding on

I've gained a bit of strength since yesterday, and I tell mom about Gus, but I tell her I couldn't reach him. She sobs for me, seeing through my weak attempt at a lie and regretting keeping me from where she knows I will be happier. But somewhere in her brain she too knows that once I go to Gus, she will never see me again. I assure her that she need not worry. I can only relate to my pain over Gus, who I knew for only months, and need to spare her from that pain when she loses me, and my old jokes only bring her pain. Every time ANTM comes on, I see my mother stopping, the pain swallowing her whole as it always does me. I can prevent this just a little bit longer, I explain to her, and I'm going to for as long as I can.

Three more times Gus visits me, and three more times I deny the relief I know will come when I accept his invitation to join him and Isaac and all the other kids on the list from the end of support group and every other good dead person ever. Each time I do, I tell my mom. I see that she feels a twinge of regret for making me suffer, but also joy in one more day with her baby.

Three days pass without a visit, but I can feel my lungs about to spill with fluid, just barley worse that the overwhelming pain everywhere else in my body, the signal he will soon be coming.

This time he comes, but I think he knows I will deny him, and I do, but just barely. I don't know how much longer I can take this life I'm living. But the smile on my mother's face when I write on the pad I was given once I passed the point of pain to talk that once again I chose to be with her makes it all worthwhile.


	4. Chapter 4 letting go

Chapter 4

The next day I awake gasping, not enough room in my lungs to even accept the air. I flail trying to take in any but truly feeling like I was underwater and there was literally not another particle of air on earth. Gus comes, frantically begging, assuring me it's hurting my mom more than it's worth now to return to her so useless, but I still refuse. It's the most pain I've ever felt and my mom has already been ushered out of the room, which killed me on the inside to see. My mom, my indestructible rock, so utterly broken, unable to do anything but cry and scram for her baby, even though even she knows I am too far gone. But still I try so hard, with every grasp of might I can muster to return to her. She is my mother! She's loved my even when I was such a messy, slimy baby. She loved me through my toddler years and all the homework meltdowns. She lived me through the teenage drama, and then she was my best friend, standing by me through all the cancer drama and the Gus drama and everything else. I somehow manage to shout "I'M SORRY! I'M SO SORRY MOMMY!" which only worsens the pain, making it so utterly unbearable I know I can't live on, but still I try. Finally, Augustus grabs my hands and rips me from the body that has trapped me and failed me and caused my nothing but pain in life. Immediately I'm relieved, feeling better than I've ever felt, even before, when I was healthy. I've never felt so happy, so free. But then I hear my monitor flat line, and I hear the hopeless screams of my mother, who sounds as though she will never be able to pull herself back together, and at the same time, never in my life have I felt so sad.

**A/N- I literally cried writing this, and I hope it was as good to you guys as it seemed to me. I really just hadn't seen one quite like this, so I wanted to write it. I promise I won't leave it here, ill write a sequel! I promise! But please REVIEW! They help me so much and let me know what to change and what to keep dong, and I love hearing that you liked my work! So again, there will be a sequel, I already started it, I really hoped you liked it, and please REVIEW! (and personally, I always pictured Hazel stronger than I portrayed her in chapter 1) **


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